I like using XTerm, I like its default "fixed" font, and I like using terminal colors rather than having a monochromatic terminal.

However, XTerm seems to insist on using a bold version of the font whenever it's displaying a bright color:

I hate the bold version of the font, but I like the brightness. The man page seems to suggest that adding "XTerm.VT100.boldMode:false" to my ~/.Xresources would disable this "feature", but it doesn't seem to have any effect. I've had it in there for months, so it's not a rebooting issue.

How can I force XTerm to always use the standard, non-bold version of the fixed font, even when it's displaying bright text?

Edit: Some have suggested putting "XTerm*boldMode: false" in my ~/.Xresources. That didn't help either. I've confirmed that the changes have taken effect with xrdb, though:

$ xrdb -query | grep boldMode
XTerm*boldMode: false

If I run xprop and click an xterm, I get "WM_CLASS(STRING) = "xterm", "XTerm"" .. so I'm definitely running real xterms.

BTW, this is just a plain-vanilla Ubuntu Intrepid box. If anyone else here is running the same, can you try running:

echo -e '#\e[1m#'

...and let me know whether the # on the right has a black pixel in the middle like the one on the left does?

I found it necessary (on Lucid Lynx) to create ~/.Xdefaults-$(hostname). Omitting hostname made settings ineffective. ba's matching of font and boldFont did the trick of eliminating bold. xfontsel is a nice way to figure out what font to specify there. You can also start an xterm with something like xterm -font '-misc-fixed-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' to test that your defaults are taking effect.